


Don’t be angry

by bemusedbicycle



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:31:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7513543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemusedbicycle/pseuds/bemusedbicycle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma knows the only way to stop the assault on the castle is to give Rumpelstiltskin what he wants - her. (From the prompt: “I gave myself up for you.”)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t be angry

He’s waiting in her rooms when she arrives, shoulders tense and eyebrows pulled low despite the ringing silence. The maps of the castle and surrounding territories are right where he left them on her desk, along with their abandoned tea mugs and a half-eaten croissant from the night prior.

After weeks of near constant attack, it’s strange to be able to hear herself think.

“I don’t understand,” he begins, scratching roughly at the back of his head, haphazard tufts left at awkward angles from his anxious fingers. She lets her hand smooth them back as she approaches, nails scratching lightly at his neck, her thumb grazing the tip of his ear. Their relationship has never moved beyond heated looks and unsaid words, but she supposes now would be a good time to indulge in the things she wishes she would have done. He quirks an eyebrow, but says nothing on the matter, his mind seemingly occupied by the more obvious mystery. “Why is it that he’s stopped his attack?”

She breathes in deep through her nose and tugs him away from the window, closer to where the fire burns low in the gate. “Don’t be angry.”

She had thought to hide it, at first. Disappear in the morning mist with a note left on her nightstand. He would have found it eventually, she knows, but the idea of leaving him without saying goodbye, just like all the others who have left her behind, well -

It’s a thought worse than what awaits her at the hands of Rumpelstiltskin.

He resists her guiding hands, mind quickly putting the pieces together. He’s always been a fast thinker. It’s why she appointed him her advisor as soon as she was made Queen.

(Young. Far too young. Nineteen years old and her parents whisked away to another realm, the kingdom in ruin. She had no choice but to take up the crown. And Killian. From kitchen boy to Royal Knight, his advance had been just as abrupt. But his steadfast advice and counsel never changed. Nor his comfort.)

His eyes narrow and his bottom lip catches between his teeth, fingers circling her wrist and pulling until he can duck down and meet her gaze. Impossibly blue eyes consider her with growing panic. “What have you done?”

She takes a breath and tries to smile “Say what you will about the man, but he’s always honored his deals,” she flips her hand and allows her fingers to lace with his. They’ve done this before, of course, tangled fingers and her head upon the shoulder in the privacy of her carriage, her chambers. But she’s never been so intent upon remembering the feel of his skin on hers. “This one is straight forward enough.”

“Oh, Emma,” his face crumbles, and this is the worst of it. Not the bird she sent to Rumpelstiltskin with the terms of her surrender. Not his sudden appearance in front of her and the way he had gleefully clasped his hands together. This. Killian looking at her like she’s just broken his heart.  “What have you done?”

“I am to surrender myself to Rumpelstiltskin in the morning. When I do, he will remove his forces from the kingdom. He will return to - “

“Return to his Dark Castle? With you in tow?” Blue eyes furious and bright, he advances on her. “Have you gone mad, Emma? He will not hesitate to kill you.”

She straightens her shoulders, feeling the lick of irritation along her spine. It isn’t as if they are burdened by choice. Rumplestiltskin has been attacking for weeks, the suffering of her people endless. She cannot sit by and merely watch. “I am doing what I must to save my kingdom.”

“You are being a fool,” he growls. Stepping away from her, he paces the room, jaw clenched and hands tight upon his sword belt. “Tell me, what is your kingdom to do without their Queen?”

“I’ve already left instruction naming my successor. Because there is no family left in my line, it is well within my right to name the person who should replace me.” She stops his manic pacing with her hands on his arms, hoping he doesn’t react the way she thinks he might. “You’ll make a fine King, Killian.”

He blinks at her. “Oh now I know you’ve lost your mind.”

She smiles despite the tightness in her throat that’s urging her to cry instead, the burning behind her eyes that grows the longer he stares down at her. She presses her hand over his heart. “There is not a decision I’ve made as Queen that you haven’t guided me to yourself. I have no doubt you’ll be a fair and just ruler, Killian.”

She watches his eyes flit between hers. “Since you have your kingdom squared away, another question then.”

She sighs. “Alright.”

His hands come to rest at her hips, his forehead tipping forward against hers. He must be sleeping in the library again, his skin smelling of candlewax and cedar. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep.

“What am I to do,” he whispers, voice cracking along the words. “What am I to do without my Queen?”

When they were children, they used to escape to the orchards through the tunnels beneath the castle. They would run through the tangled branches with their wooden swords, a knapsack of cheeses and breads stolen from the kitchen tied around Killian’s shoulders. They would run until their legs were weak with it, sprawling in the high grasses and peering up at the stars.

Killian used to tell her each star was a soul, watching down on those they loved. He pointed out his mother and father. His brother, too.

She hopes she will be among the stars.

She slips her hands to his shoulders and lets her thumb trace along his jaw. “I won’t be far,” she bumps her nose to his. “Just tilt your face to the night sky.”

“Emma, please,” his hands tighten on her hips, his breath uneven against her lips. “Stay with me. We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way. You know this.”

She’s often thought of kissing Killian, of pressing her lips to his and tasting the sound he would make beneath his breath. She’s thought of what his smirk might taste like, his smile. She’s thought of the rough scratch of his beard along her neck and how it might feel against her breasts, the inside of her thighs.

But she’s always cherished his place in her life - too afraid of the consequences of feelings unreturned. Too afraid to give in should she lose him just as she has everyone else she has dared to love.

Those thoughts seem silly now, as he clings to her in her quarters - desperation in his eyes and in the lines of his face.

“Promise me you’ll wait. That you’ll give me an opportunity to try and figure this out.”

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him no, that she is bound to fulfill her deal with Rumplestiltskin whether it be tomorrow, next week, or three years from now. More time will just make it more difficult to leave and she cannot bear to watch her people suffer any longer.

She must go. There is no other way.

“I promise,” she lies instead, curling her fingers around the back of his neck. His breath shudders and she presses up on her toes, not daring to think before catching his bottom lip with hers. There is a tremulous moment of indecision as she moves her mouth against his without response, but then he breathes in sharp through his nose and she matches it, letting their mouths linger before he returns her kiss with the barest pressure.

It is tender in a way she didn’t think to imagine, his hand slipping up her spine and tangling in her hair as he tilts her head to the side gently, chasing her mouth with his. It is lips and tongue and teeth - a wet slide of heat as his mouth becomes more demanding.

“Please,” he whispers between their lips, a benediction she was never meant to hear. He seals it into her skin with his teeth grazing her neck, mouthing the words once more when she arches back.

He gathers her to him and lets his face rest between shoulder and neck as their hearts race furiously between them. She combs her fingers through his hair and lets the tears fall silent.

This was never supposed to be their end.

He pulls back when she can no longer mask her disjointed breaths, fingers catching the tears on her cheeks. He sighs.

“Let me fetch you some tea, darling.”

She shakes her head, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes until she sees spots. She doesn’t wish to spend her last night with him crying.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve made you a cup of tea, love,” his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Please.”

“Alright,” she agrees, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. “But when you return, do you think - “ she fiddles with a stray piece of thread, twists it around and around her fingers. “Do you think you could stay with me?”

This is not the Killian she wants to remember - with slumped shoulders and sad eyes. She closes her own against it, focusing instead of a day spent in the meadow not far from the edge of the castle grounds, beautiful pink flowers blooming in elegant chaos. He had laid with her in the grass, her head pillowed in his lap, his fingers tangling in her hair and his face tipped to the sun.

That is the image she will carry with her tomorrow morning as she meets her demise.

She opens her eyes again just as he manages a nod.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

-/-

She wakes impossibly warm, the sun bright upon her skin. It takes her a moment to gather herself, but when she stretches out and finds the sheets cool to the touch, she sits up abruptly.

Her quarters are empty, the sun high in the sky.

She’s slept through the morning.

Through her agreement.

Scrambling from the twisted sheets, it takes her another moment to realize Killian is not in the place he curled against her last night, his hand warm against her belly and his breath against the back of her neck. His sword belt is gone as well, his boots missing from the edge of the bed where he toed them off.

She snatches her empty tea mug from the nightstand and brings it to her nose, anxiety clawing up the back of her throat when she smells the sticky sweet remnants of the dream root Granny uses to lull her to sleep when the day’s pressures are too much to shrug off and she needs an aid to pull her to slumber. She can’t believe she didn’t notice it before, her mind too occupied with thoughts of Killian and saying goodbye and -

 _Killian_.

Red gemstone catches her eye from the center of the table, placed neatly in the middle away from the now organized maps and ledgers.

She curls her shaking fingers around the ring (the one he wears on his pinky - the one from his brother he never removes) and opens the folded sheet of paper it sits upon, a sob lodged in her throat when she reads his elegant scrawl.

_Don’t be angry, my love._


End file.
